Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus is easily the most well-known Conquistador. He was born some time in the fall of 1451 in the Republic of Ganea, Italy.

When he was 41 years old, he set sail across the Atlantic ocean to try to find a new trading route to Asia, by, instead of sailing east, sailing west.

Knowing the earth was round, Columbus figured he should be able to sail west and then find Asia. Now, one misconception is that Columbus discovered that the earth was round. However, people had known for centuries that the earth was round: it was common knowledge. The only reason that Columbus's idea wasn't tried before is because scientists at the time knew that the earth would be too big to sail across safely. Columbus, though, believed that the world was much smaller than it actually was. He believed that he could sail across the world in a matter of days. (If Columbus hadn't run into America, he would've died from starvation or scurvy!)

So, naturally, Columbus had a hard time convincing the King and Queen of Spain to fund his sailing. However, after a few years of Columbus begging for funds, the King and Queen became desperate, and decided "what the heck, we'll fund his ridiculous idea."

So, on the 3rd of August, 1492, Columbus set out to find Asia. After a long 2 months of sailing across the Atlantic, Christopher Columbus landed in the Caribbean. Columbus believed he had landed in India, and called the 250,000 Taino people living in the areas he landed in "Indians." He would go on to find Hispaniola Island, many of the other Caribbean Islands, the tip of South America, Central America, Cape Verde, The Canary Islands, and Mexico.

When Columbus arrived, the natives treated him and his crew with the utmost hospitality. Unfortunately, Columbus didn't treat them the same. In fact, he left and came back with 17 ships full of men, and attempted to ransack the Taino people for their gold. However, there was one issue: the Taino people didn't know what gold even was, let alone have any. So, Columbus ordered his men that he brought with him to begin slaughtering the innocent Taino people.

And that's all Columbus did. He practically sailed around and killed a bunch of innocent people for no good reason.

His life ended on May 20, 1506. He was 54 years old.

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